Legal tech startup LegalOn has secured US$50 million in a Series E funding round led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, signalling further interest in the legal AI sector by major financial institutions.
The round also included participation from World Innovation Lab, Japanese law firm Mori Hamada, Mizuho Bank, and Shoko Chukin.
This latest funding brings LegalOn’s total raised to more than US$200 million, following its US$101 million Series D round in 2022.
Originally founded in Japan in 2017 under the name LegalForce, the company expanded into the US market in 2022 and is now preparing for further international growth, particularly in the UK and other global legal markets.
Daniel Lewis, LegalOn’s global CEO, said the new funds would be used to accelerate the development of the company’s agentic AI tools and to grow its business development operations.
“We’re going to be building a variety of agents across the workflow that help lawyers go from intake all the way through to completion on a wide variety of tasks,”
Lewis said.
“We’ve come to believe that the problems that legal teams are facing around the world … are really universal.”
The Series E round follows recent product expansions, including the launch of a Matter Management module and an AI-powered playbook feature introduced in January, moving the company beyond its initial focus on contract review.
LegalOn also announced a new strategic collaboration with OpenAI.
The partnership provides the company with early access to OpenAI’s advanced models through ChatGPT Enterprise and its API.
Engineers from both organisations are working together to develop new legal agents, which may give LegalOn an advantage in deploying secure generative AI tools for enterprise legal use.
While LegalOn has previously incorporated OpenAI’s models, Lewis said this deeper collaboration would enable “closer technical alignment and earlier access than what’s available to competitors.”
Goldman Sachs’ involvement in this round reflects continued, albeit selective, investment by large financial firms in the legal technology sector.
The bank was also a backer in Clio’s US$900 million Series F round last year, though such deals remain relatively uncommon.
Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by Freepik